Flyer answered the prayers of everyone who had read B: Y1 and wondered about the fate of the chopper pilot. Yes, the one whose craft was engulfed by the bats Batman summoned to cover his escape shortly after he punched a cat-hating man through a wall. No doubt crippling the cop from the waist down and leading to the disintegration of his marriage and an empty bedsit life with only a hot plate and tear stained photos of his estranged son as solace. Until that is he was run over in front of some orphans by The Joker (having now cut his own cock off and stapled it to his face like a wee fake nose) in a clown car powered by the blood of Mother Theresa. That’s not this story. That’s a Scott Snyder story and it’s about family. Flyer, however, is about the chopper pilot we were all worried about at the beginning of this paragraph.

David Mazzucchelli

Gil Kane

Predictably enough he (the flyer!) suffered catastrophic physical ruin and was only saved by virtue of the fact that his Mum was working on a government weapons programme based on advances by Nazi scientists with said advances being brought to bear to build him a jaw, a lower leg and a flying suit or two. As usual in these stories his mother turns out to be an unrepentant Nazi driven insane by her own (hopefully. Jesus, Howard!) unrequited lust for her own father resulting in a mind-soilingly twisted love-hate relationship with her own son. Naturally she uses her own tech-enhanced son to lure Batman into her randy grasp; his physical and mental perfection having made Bats the ideal candidate for helping her turn her well-maintained womb into an Ubermensch dispenser. Babies, there. I’m talking about Bat-babies. Weirdly, Batman declines her kind offer. There’s a fight and it all ends in tears. Mostly hers. And it actually is about family. A lot of HVC’s stuff is about family but a lot more of it is about the monied elite mucking the hoi polloi about as they are charmingly wont to do. Because they can, see. So that’s okay.

Flyer is, in fact, the first Batman tale written by HVC. He would go on to write many others but here we can see the first shaky steps towards laying out the issues he would use the character to explore. Because HVC has a very particular take on Batman, or more precisely HVC has a very particular take on Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is of course rich and being rich he is powerful. HVC’s work is very concerned with the rich and powerful and the effect they have on the world. I may have mentioned that before. In all likelihood I will mention it again. I’m set in my ways, okay? While HVC usually assigns the monied elite the villainous role Bruce Wayne forces him to stretch a bit and try to find a sympathetic approach to the privileged. This doesn’t come easy to him but he makes this work to his advantage by shunting his concerns onto the Bruce Wayne character. This gives Bruce something to mull over while he isn’t being punched, punching back or being mauled by a bawdy cougar. He doesn’t really come to any real conclusions but it’s enough that Batman doesn’t just accept he should punch people in the face, because. Underneath all the raunchy nonsense and pulp trappings HVC always remembers to provide something to engage the brain. The balance is a bit off here though, largely due to Mrs Eisenmann who steals every scene she’s in and having stolen it probably tries to force it to make Aryan babies.

Gil Kane helps here with a fabulous level of artistry where the demented NILF is concerned. Obviously using Graduate era Anne Bancroft as his cue Kane builds a character whose body language fully plays into the turbo raunch and psychotic mind mess she embodies. Whenever the menopausal supremacist appears with Batman Kane depicts her with eyes glazed with lust and sporting a dirty smirk like a haus frau on a hen do when the boy dancers break out the baby oil. HVC’s overheated and fantastically deranged dialogue is turbid with erotic fervour and in combination with Kane’s body language brilliance result in one of the great lunatics of comics.

A dead giveaway that HVC’s script is not King is present in Kane’s breaking of HVC’s Golden Rule on more than one occasion. No, calm down, this Golden Rule is not something mucky from a ‘70s bath house but rather HVC’s repeatedly stated belief that a scene should only change on the page turn rather than within the body of the page itself. It’s a simple rule and a good rule and it’s hard not to imagine Kane’s flouting of it as his cocking a snook in HVC’s direction. It’s possible (pure conjecture this) that Kane was gently asserting his authority. HVC had been his assistant in the past on two occasions so there might have been a playful little power game being enacted. A cheeky little reminder. Mischief seems to be present, but good natured mischief rather than its sour cousin malice. Two old friends pissing each other about a bit.

One of the best things about Flyer is a thing that appears on none of its pages but is apparent in every page since none of them would exist without it; HVC and Gil Kane’s shared history. Yes, it appears not only comics have continuity but people too. Before Flyer Kane and HVC had had a parting of the ways. Why is none of our beeswax, what counts is they healed the rift before it was too late. Which is kinda heartwarming, aw yeah. And on that note here’s the popular singer and terrible dresser Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley to play us out ….

A word of thanks now to Mr. Charlie Hodge, who brings me muh towels an’ mah wattah. And mah COMICS!!!

(I forgot to mention that I know Batman looks about three feet high in the one where he’s kicking the dude in the face. It’s okay, you can say that. My guess is Kane’s Atom reflexes kicked in and he didn’t notice. It’s pretty funny though. Still good art, mind.)

I feel really badly because I feel like I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve been reading the columns, I just haven’t had anything witty or intelligent to say. I did agree with your entire best of 2012 list, except for best podcast. Nothing against the guys who do it, I just haven’t listened to any enough to say, “Right on!” with conviction. Beyond that, I can’t think of anything particularly insightful…

Basically, I’m enjoying the columns, even if I don’t comment.

Did I tell you I was talking to someone who took a class from Gil Kane and said he was the meanest person he ever met? I always find gossip like that fascinating.

@Chris Hero: Don’t feel bad, Chris Hero! I’m sure you have plenty of wit and intelligence; you just choose to squander it in areas other than my comments sections. I don’t know why!

Um, I didn’t pick a best podcast so I don’t know who you mean, sorry. I rarely get time to sit staring into space while people talk into my ears via technology. But when I do I can tell you hand on heart that it’s always The Graeme’n’Jeff Show for me! I don’t think I’ve ever listened to another podcast so my judgement is less than balanced. Anyway Best Podcast of 2012 was WAIT, WHAT! Natch!

I am glad you are enjoying the columns. I appreciate the feedback because, seriously, sometimes it’s like I’ve written them in a fugue state or something. I’m like, who wrote this cra–oh, I did? I still have no idea basically.

You did say you were being taught by an ex-Kananite but you didn’t say Gil was a big old meanie! Was that mean in a penny pinching way? Because I know Gil had a few wives and that there alimony cuts into the old budget, or so I hear. Or Gil was a nasty meany? That’s a shame. Maybe he just didn’t get on with your tutor? I mean Gil fired HVC twice and they still got on. So, yeah, basically I’m in denial about Gil Kane being mean. He could draw though, right? Right?

Thanks for the comments, they are always appreciated even when they destroy all my cherished heroes and turn everything to ashes. ASHES!

@Darius Smith: Yes, he did for when Schulz was ill but they didn’t see print. So…..ah, HVC (and Ernie Colon) drew the syndicated newspaper strip STARHAWKS when Gil was ill. That’s the connection right? Is there a connection? Well, it’s all I got. Thanks for the comics trivia burst rgardless!

Legends of the Dark Knight – that was a helluva series for the first couple years, wasn’t it? Morrison, Garcia-Lopez, Matt Wagner, and Chayky Kane – good, good stuff. I think this may, actually, have been the book in which I first, finally appreciated Mr. Kane’s work. I can’t say why – maturity of taste or some hormonal imbalance caused by puberty, who knows – but I do remember these three issues fondly. Thank you for reminding me of them. Now, it seems, I need to pore through the longboxes and see if I can find these, and that Matt Wagner “Faces” story (damn, that was good too, and, I believe, my introduction to Mr. Wagner).

Also, I love your voice in all of these pieces. There’s an exuberance and joy in the writing that really comes through and reminds me of the fun that comics can bring. Here’s to Chayky Kane, in tall its iterations, and good comics, whether they be old or new.

@Chris Beckett: Hey, it’s okay people! Comment if you want and comment if you can! I well know you’ve been busy Chris Beckett what with all that “Reading Watchmen” business.

Glad you like Chayky Kane too. Otherwise it’d be slim pickings (not the film star)indeed for you round here.
Yeah, LOTDK was good altho’ due to finacial lack at the time I read most of them in various TPBs later. Yeah, Wagner’s FACES was a good one.

I realise sometimes my voice gets a bit shrill and hectoring at times but, yes, I do try to err on the side of enthusiasm. Glad that comes through.

Thanks a lot as ever, but what you need, really need, to do now is read BEFORE WATCHMEN with the same rigour you applied to the original. Ho ho ho.